


every corner abandoned too soon

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: (or lighthouse operator), (same thing really), Depression, M/M, also!!! this has a hAPPY ENDING!!!!!, i want you all to be safe and happy, implied almost suicide attempt, louis is harrys sunshine, please don't read if you think it might trigger you, self harm mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2013-12-08
Packaged: 2018-01-04 00:03:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1074622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em> Harry thinks he could be a crashing wave – starting as nothing, surging and surging until it crashes, destroying anything within too close a proximity but doing nothing to disturb the way of things, the world carries on turning and people carry on living. Waves are always crashing and no one takes any notice. Harry is a crashing wave. </em>
</p><p>or au: where harry thinks a lot of thoughts and is saved by the beautiful boy who lives in the lighthouse</p>
            </blockquote>





	every corner abandoned too soon

**Author's Note:**

> i didn't think i was capable of this way of writing even though i've always really admired it but yeah i just sat down and two hours passed and i had this so yeeeaaaah  
> the title is from atmosphere by joy division just incase you were wondering!!!!!

It’s raining. No, storming, and Harry doesn’t understand why his eyes are trying to out-do the weather. He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting here for and apparently that’s become a regular thing. He no longer has control of his body really, he is just his thoughts, he doesn’t have a body. He is just a big mess of thoughts, trapped inside this body that he has no control over. He can’t remember if he felt like this before all those medications stopped working because that was just so long ago and he’s tired, he’s always tired, and he doesn’t like thinking about those sorts of things. 

Lightning flashes across the sky and lights up the low lying cloud that hovers over the entirety of the small fishing town. If he squints hard enough, he can see the relentless white wash of the ocean crashing against the rocks below the light house from where he’s sitting up against the window. He feels restless, but not the kind of restless a good night’s sleep can fix. He feels restless in the way that he doesn’t know what he wants, like an itch that can’t be scratched or a hunger that can’t be satisfied. He feels trapped in this body and he wants to break free – he wants to tear all the skin away and get out because there’s this uncomfortable feeling that has settled between his skin and his bones and it does nothing but weigh him down. 

He feels like now would be a good time for a coffee or a cigarette but coffee leaves a bad taste in his mouth and he doesn’t keep any cigarettes lying around. Coffee might do something do dilute the bad taste that the last few years have left in his mouth and Harry thinks that anything is better than that. The wind is blowing the rain against the window, making these tiny little pattering sounds that remind him of comfy sofas and warm blankets and he doesn’t know why but his medication did things like that to him. He misses the feeling of being warm and cosy and he’s just been so cold for so long that it seems like another life or something. He can feel the cold radiating from the glass of the window and goose bumps prick up on his bare skin but he doesn’t do anything. He can’t do anything. He feels so weighed down and useless and he’s just his thoughts he can’t control his body. 

Thunder has always scared Harry. It perplexes him because there isn’t anything frightening about it at all – it is just sound. When he was younger he used to be afraid of the dark and storms - he used to think they would make the power go out. But he isn’t afraid of the dark anymore, he can’t be, because his house is always dark, the sky is always dark, his thoughts are always dark, and everything is always dark now. 

He watches the top of the lighthouse and how the spotlight pierces through the haze of rain and sea mist, shining directly into Harry’s room and illuminating it upon every rotation. When he first moved here he hated it, but it kind of reminds him of a heartbeat and that reassures him. He wonders who looks after the lighthouse, who lives there and has to turn the light on and off every evening and morning, but that’s about as far as it goes. It’s just one of those things that _is_ – like ants knowing when the rain is coming and eyebrows knowing where to grow. 

Harry’s eyes are starting to burn from the constant stream of tears but that’s just that, isn’t it? Even he wants to escape this body so he can’t blame his tears from wanting to as well, and who is he to deny them their freedom? The thunder seems to rattle everything; the foundations of the house, the panes of the windows and his brain inside his skull. He often feels like they must have put the wrong brain in his skull and that’s all he is, a factory defect, that sets him apart from everyone else – the reason why the medications and therapists and family could never help him because his problem didn’t just come about, it’s part of who he is and it’s always been there. 

The rain partly subsides and kind of just blends in with the constant haze of sea mist that washes in with the waves, dousing the whole town in this sadness and muting all other emotions. Harry slides open the window and breathes in deeply, the cold air washing over him and settling heavy in his chest. The contrast burns his throat slightly and kind of hurts up in the back of his nose but physical pain is overrated. Physical pain is just your body trying to tell you that you fucked up. Mental pain is knowing you fucked up. Harry thinks he’d take that any day over mental pain because knowing you’ve fucked up is a lot worse than getting signals from a body that isn’t even his. 

He stands slowly and the blood drains from his head and he doesn’t even remember the last time he ate, let alone got out of bed so he grabs on to the wall to steady himself. He’d always kind of sickly enjoyed that all-consuming feeling you get right before you pass out. He likes how everything goes fuzzy and your vision blacks out and there’s this ringing in your ears and you don’t even notice anything has happened until you wake up five hours later on the bathroom tiles and it already dark outside and you hadn’t realised just how much blood there actually was. 

He pulls on a pair of jeans that smell like spaghetti bolognese which is strange because he hasn’t eaten spaghetti since the tray was left anonymously on his doorstep over a month ago. He picks a grey hoodie up off the floor and it has red stains on it but so do most of Harry’s clothes so he doesn’t think too much into it. He climbs out the open window because the door is too far away and he can’t tell his body what to do. The cool night air grips around his bare chest from his unzipped hoodie like a vice. It freezes his ribs and cools his blood seems to make functioning a slower task. He walks along the dotted line of the road, down the hill, down, down, down – just like everything else. He walks in darkness and takes comfort in the shadows, the occasional cone of light produced by the sporadically placed street lamps make him feel exposed and uneasy. It’s so, so quiet this time of night but his thoughts are yelling all at once and it’s so, so loud. The sheer volume makes him squirm, like when everyone’s trying to rush through a narrow doorway at the same time but there’s too many people and not enough space and not enough time, there’s never enough time. 

Suddenly there’s screaming and Harry’s running, running so fast. His feet feel like they are on fire but Harry likes it. He likes the feeling of the bitumen tearing at the soles of his feet and the way the sand sinks between his toes. When he reaches the rocks below the lighthouse, he lays down on the smooth surfaces, pummelled down by centuries of crashing waves and abolishing rains. Harry thinks he could be a crashing wave – starting as nothing, surging and surging until it crashes, destroying anything within too close a proximity but doing nothing to disturb the way of things, the world carries on turning and people carry on living. Waves are always crashing and no one takes any notice. Harry is a crashing wave. 

Harry stands up and takes off his jumper. His skin tingles as the spray from a wave below dusts his skin and makes his hair stand up. He knows this feeling and he’s had it before, but never like this. His blood is screaming at him and it wants to get out. The screams are so loud and he can’t mute them any longer. He closes his eyes and watches the heartbeat of the lighthouse as it shines orange through his eyelids every few moments. He walks forward and feels his toes wrap around the edge of the rocks and he smiles. His thoughts stop thinking and he just _is._

“Are you okay?” Harry barely hears the timid voice above the noise of his blood and the roar of the waves crashing beneath him. He opens his eyes slowly and turns around. A few steps behind his is a boy about his age. He has big red wellies on and a rain jacket that absolutely consumes him, the hood pulled up around his feathered fringe. His big blue eyes shine in the moonlight and look like the ocean and Harry thinks he’d much rather drown in them. He looks expectantly up at Harry so he nods – he can’t remember the last time he spoke and he doesn't think he even knows how to use his voice anymore. The boy reaches out for Harry, but retracts his arm straight after. Harry doesn't know what to do in a situation like this. 

“Do you want to come back up to the light house with me?” He asks and Harry smiles again because he now knows. This boy is his light house, this boy is his heartbeat. Harry nods and waits for the boy to start walking before he moves away from the edge. “I’m Louis” he says with a smile once Harry catches up with him, smiling at him making the skin by his eyes crinkle. Harry reaches down and takes Louis’ hand in his and he’s confused because his thoughts made is body move and that hasn’t happened in he can’t remember how long. He feels Louis’ fingers curl around his and Harry can hear his blood be silenced and his thoughts turn to whispers. 

“I’m sorry but the only thing I can offer you is, like, coffee and cigarettes.” Louis says huffing softly in frustration but Harry smiles because he’s drowning but this time it’s in Louis’ eyes and it’s exactly what he needs. 


End file.
